John Palmer Usher

John Palmer Usher (9 January 1816-13 April 1889) was the US Secretary of the Interior from 1 January 1863 to 15 May 1865, succeeding Caleb Blood Smith and preceding James Harlan.

Biography
John Palmer Usher was born in Brookfield, New York, and he moved to Terre Haute, Indiana in 1839, becoming a law partner. He became acquainted with Abraham Lincoln while practicing law in both Indiana and Illinois during the 1840s and 1850s, and he was elected Indiana Attorney General in 1862. From 1863 to 1865, he served as Lincoln's Secretary of the Interior, but Lincoln did not want to Indianans to serve in his cabinet, as Hugh McCullough had been appointed to serve as Secretary of the Treasury in 1865. Usher was also a member of the conservative Republicans, opposing Lincoln's commitment to passing the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution, as he wanted Lincoln to instead focus on the assault on Wilmington port and victory in the war. Usher was involved in the Kansas railroad industry after leaving the American Civil War, and he died in 1889.